As he had said it! I was mute... Every one is aware that poor Ruth was nobody—the rich daughter of a Hull shipping-magnate. I made him marry her because he had to marry some one with a little money—and much good it has been to anybody!,—but I hardly expected to hear him boasting or encouraging his children to pretend that there are no distinctions...
"Well, it's not my business, dear Brackenbury," I said. I was feeling too ill to wrangle... "When I asked you to come here, it was because—accidents do happen—I wanted to see you again, perhaps for the last time—"
"But aren't you frightening yourself unduly?," interrupted Brackenbury. "Arthur told me it was only—"
"Arthur knows nothing about it," I said. It is always so pleasant, when you are facing the possibility of death, to be told that it is all nothing... "I wanted to see you," I said, "about Will. You and I have to pull together for the sake of the family. If anything happens to me, I leave Will in your charge. His father will, of course, do what he can, but poor Arthur has nothing but his directorships; you must be our rock and anchor."
And then I plucked up courage to ask whether Brackenbury could not do something permanent for our boy. Even a thousand a year... It is not as though he couldn't afford it if Ruth shewed a little good-will, not as though either had done so extravagantly much for their own nephew. Brackenbury did indeed undertake to pay for him at Eton; but, as Will left before any of us expected, they were let off lightly...
Brackenbury would only talk of increasing expenses and the burden of taxation.
"I could face my operation with an easier mind," I said, "if I knew that Will would never want."
"Well, some one has always pulled him out hitherto," said Brackenbury. "I suppose some one always will." I had to rack my brains, but honestly truly the only occasion I could remember on which he had come to our assistance was when Will as a mere boy fell in with some men no better than common swindlers who prevailed on him to play cards for stakes which he could not afford... "He won't want," Brackenbury went on with the insolence of a man who has never done a hand's turn in his life, "if he'll only buckle down to it and work. Or he could spend less money."
This, I knew, was a "dig" at me. Before my boy had time to learn how very little distance his army pay would take him, I had asked my brother to tide him over a passing difficulty. Would you not have thought that any uncle would have welcomed the opportunity? I said nothing. And then Brackenbury had the assurance to criticize my way of life and to ask why I kept on the house in Mount Street if it always meant "pulling the devil by the tail," as he so elegantly expressed it. Why did I not take a less expensive house? And so on and so forth. I suppose he imagined that I could ask the princess to come to Bayswater...
"Do not," I said, "let us discuss the matter any more. It is unpleasant to be a pauper, but more unpleasant to be a beggar. If my boy wins through with his life—"